Rockbrat Remembers: The Bailey Brothers

The Bailey Brothers, like many other ‘rock journo personalities’ were around at the right time. In the late 80’s heavy metal was the biggest style of music in the world, and there was plenty of room for journos and other professional hangers on to sit on the fringe of the genre and access the world’s biggest rock stars. Who else was there ? You may remember such personalities as Sam Kinison and Riki Rachtman and plenty of others whose names now escape me. The scene was so big that people could operate on the periphery of it and not just make money off it, but also have some influence as well – the Bailey Brothers being a case in point. Any reader of Metal Hammer magazine in the late 80’s would have read their influential column, and these guys helped launch Metal Hammer magazine in the UK and had a double page feature, They were columnists for 6 years. They also had their own show on MTV, The Bailey Brothers, which back in the early 90’s reached 15 million viewers in Europe. The Bailey Bros appeared at most of London’s premier venues including the Marquee, Brixton Academy, Lyceum, Astoria etc and also elevated to the festival circuit appearing on the bill 3 years in a row at the MONSTERS OF ROCK with KI$$, Iron Maiden, Bon Jovi etc. All that aside, let’s call a spade a spade though – and say here and now that they have a couple of rough looking melons. I’m sure they must look back at photos of ’emselves and cringe. Have a go at those shags. They are almost wig like. If you put Carmine Appice in the picture they’d pass as the Bailey Triplets!